Britvic bounces back to form

Britvic has out-performed the soft drinks market in both stills and carbonates with strong total branded revenue growth, up 9.3% to £353.6m.

Stills showed continued good growth with revenues up 8.5%, driven by a strong performance from Britvic’s leading brands such as the success of Fruit Shoot H2O, which further strengthened its position as the number one kid’s water brand; J2O continues to strengthen its category leadership with the recently launched PET pack performing well.
Continuing growth in Robinsons squash, with the new large pack facilities, enabled Britvic to compete effectively with own label.
Carbonates also saw strong revenue growth of 9.6% driven by the strength of the Pepsi brand proposition which continues to deliver further market share gains despite an increasingly competitive sector and a growing presence in the important discounters sector.
Paul Moody, chief executive, commented,“Britvic’s improved performance has been achieved through exploiting our brand strength in the stills category, sustaining core brand activity in carbonates and by further driving revenue through innovation and international expansion. These actions, together with a sharp focus on improving efficiency, optimising working capital and increasing operating margins mean we are very well placed to capture the benefits of the attractive future growth and large size of the soft drinks market.
“The agreement to acquire the soft drinks and distribution businesses of C&C Group plc provides us with a leading position in the soft drinks market in Ireland and a great opportunity to accelerate earnings growth. There is exciting potential for anticipated synergies of £14m, brand and product expansion and innovation.